I hope you’re right, Tamar – and I have learned from experience that you almost invariably are. Do I really need “almost” in that sentence?

The only change in my husband’s medication recently is, of all things, the addition of eardrops. He has been hard of hearing for some time – nothing remotely like the current experience, however. I asked the nurse if the eardrops could be responsible for this, and she thought it possible that wax has been dislodged and that syringing will put it right. I am not entirely convinced, but clearly syringing must be tried first.

Thanks for your concern for my finger, Southern Gal. I think it is healing all right. I don’t think we have any antiseptic. I sort of hoped the blood would have washed the germs away. I slept the first night with a newly-laundered handkerchief wrapped around the finger as a sort of tourniquet. Bandaids don’t stay on because one’s hands are so endlessly in water.

Now for knitting, a much pleasanter topic. Thank you for your help with the Fair Isle colour problems. I keenly look forward to trying a shot of red next time. And Karen, I like the idea of that bright lime-yellow as the “pop” colour. And Maureen, I take your point that these lozenges don’t really lend themselves to the traditional Shetland “pop” of colour in the middle. I’ve got lots of ideas to play around with.

A dear friend gave me the catalogue of the R.A. exhibition in which Hopper’s “Gas” currently appears. The illustration of it there, better than the newspaper one, doesn’t add any substantial information about colour, however.

But today I got dutifully back to Tannehill. I’ve finished the back and re-started the front at the underarm. I had to wind another skein so that I could use two at once, one on either side of the v-neck. I had been looking forward to using my Sirka (unused for a while) to track the simultaneous side- and v-neck decreases, but I find I can’t budge two of the three tabs. Yellow and blue, the two outer ones. Grey, in the middle, works fine.

It’s plastic, for heaven’s sake. It couldn’t have rusted. Maybe I’ll try loosening the central screw tomorrow. Maybe I’ll order a new one. Except that by the time it gets here, I’ll have finished the front somehow.

Non-knit

Rachel is coming up from London for a couple of days after Easter – a fortnight from today, in fact. And Helen will fly back from Greece on Easter Sunday. Two good reasons, besides cider-drinking, to look forward to the end of Lent. It will be good to have Rachel in the picture.

Exciting news: my quince tree, in a pot on the front doorstep, is about to burst into flower! I’ll show you, as soon as it does so.